Protecting Older People From Burglary: Prevalence of Security Devices in the Homes of Older Adults in Perth,Western Australia

ABSTRACT

Fear restricts the activity of older adults, potentially leading to social isolation and unhealthy life styles. Consequently, this population remains a priority for home security research and intervention. One option is to increase home security by installing security devices. However, little is known about how older adults protect their homes. In this study, 5,582 community-dwelling older people completed a cross-sectional survey. The survey was able to document the prevalence of security measures taken by older adults. More than 70% of the respondents had security screens and key-operated deadlocks and 148 (2.7%) respondents reported no security features. Respondents living alone had the lowest prevalence of home security devices. Female living alone protected their home differently from male living alone by installing different security devices. Logistic regression analysis indicated that older adults living in detached houses feel particularly vulnerable to burglary (p < .001). These survey findings have practical implication for burglary prevention.     

Double-crested cormorants and urban wilderness: conflicts and management

In this paper we examine the management of human-double-crested cormorant conflicts in urban nature areas using the Leslie Street Spit in Toronto, Ontario as our focal study area. We examine the management perspectives of various stakeholders and how they shift over time in response to site ecology and stakeholder input. We categorize management perspectives on a spectrum from complete human domination to near absence of human intention. Two broad management categories emerge from this framework: interventionist and laissez-faire. Interventionists recognized need for management of cormorants, laissez-faire argued for no management of a cormorant colony that has deforested 24% of the site through their nesting activities. We conclude that for urban nature areas, particularly those with a unique, rare, or contentious ecology, a hands-off, laissez-faire management approach is not conducive to improving human-nature relations. Rather, for urban nature sites nature management must promote a respectable balance between human and non-human life, for the long-term benefit of both.     

Traditional birth attendant training and local birthing practices in India

Training birth attendants (TBAs) provide essential maternal and infant health care services during delivery and ongoing community care in developing countries. Despite inadequate evidence of relevance and effectiveness of TBA training programmes, there has been a policy shift since the 1990s in that many donor agencies funding TBA training programmes redirected funds to providing skilled attendants during delivery. This study aimed to assess the ways in which a TBA training programme in India has been successful in disseminating evidence-based knowledge on birthing practices. TBAs practicing within 16 villages targeted by training programme initiatives were administered with structured questionnaires. The post training birthing practices of trained (24) and untrained (14) TBAs was compared and birthing practices adopted by women assisted by trained (16) and untrained (9) TBAs was analysed. Positive post training practices were hand washing, use of a clean blade for cutting the cord, immediate breastfeeding and weighing of babies. Nevertheless, the training could be further improved with up to date and evidence-based information and more comprehensive instructions. The findings suggest an integration of local and evidence-based knowledge is needed to improve the training. Raising community awareness of public health measures related to maternal and child health is also recommended.     

‘No More Sarah Hicks’: A Reconfiguration of Antebellum Time and Space for an Elite White Woman

This article considers the life of Sarah Hicks, a young middle class woman born and raised in the cultural milieu of antebellum New York, who, in 1853, married Benjamin F. Williams, a physician and slaveholder from Greene County North Carolina. The article traces her literal journey across the Mason–Dixon line where she encountered southern ways of life that were, in the first instance, bewildering to her. Gender forms the primary focus of the article as Sarah moved from a northern gender ideal of true womanhood to that of the plantation mistress. Her search for a sense of belonging as a southerner suggests a period of transition in her life as she reconfigured what it meant to a woman, wife, and mother in the antebellum world of the slaveholding South.     

‘Lucifer Is Behind Me’: The Diabolisation of Oksapmin Witchcraft as Negative Cosmological Integration

This paper examines the diabolisation of Oksapmin tamam (here glossed as ‘witchcraft’) as an example of negative cosmological integration. The article takes as its point of departure Robbins's model of cultural syncretism developed in a series of recent papers, wherein diabolisation occurs as people insert those aspects of their indigenous religion that do not contravene the Christian God's paramount creative power into the Christian cosmos as representatives of the Devil. Through my own discussion of the diabolisation of Oksapmin witchcraft, I build upon the model in three main ways. First, I draw attention to the role of the mission in providing and enforcing these negative moral terms of reference. Second, the article highlights that in cases of negative cosmological integration, whether within or outside the frame of Pentecostalist Christianity, syncretic melding and mixing may occur, regardless of rhetoric to the contrary. Finally, I point out that the subordination of indigenous religious realities within the Christian cosmos does not necessarily entail their restriction or reduction of expression, as Robbins shows for the Urapmin nature spirits known as motobil. Indeed, in the case of witchcraft, integration into the Christian cosmos and related complexes of deliverance may actually serve to intensify and amplify their expression.     

(Im)materiality, virtual reality and interaction: grounding the 'virtual' in studies of technology in action

This paper explores the organisation of social interaction amongst participants ‘in’ Virtual Reality. Despite the wide‐ranging sociological interest in ‘virtual’ technologies, there is rather little detailed sociological investigation of user experiences of the virtual technology par excellence, namely multi‐user Virtual Reality. Interestingly the discourses that underpin discussions of more mundane virtual technologies (eg email, the Web, mobile phones, etc.) tend to draw on design visions for Virtual Reality, such as the opportunities for social life freed from the constraints of the physical body. This paper contributes to a growing number of empirical studies that provide a critique of this view, but maybe more importantly, provides a detailed analysis of action and interaction in virtual worlds. It considers the organisation of interaction within VR with particular emphasis on the ways in which visual features of the digital domain are seen and shared by participants. The paper describes the ways in which the abilities to share views on the virtual world requires participants to overcome problems associated with the very material character of the VR interfaces. The study is based on the analysis of recordings of a Virtual Reality system that enables participants to talk to one another and see one another's actions within a virtual environment.     

Directional tests and statistical frames

Conditional inference has an ease of implementation that is generally unavailable with marginal inference. The main patterns for conditional inference are provided by the location and transformation families as initiated by Fisher, and by the exponential patterns as initiated by Neyman and Pearson; these are surveyed briefly together with some discussion as to how and why conditioning should be used in inference for them. A more recent alternative pattern is provided by directional (or conical) tests and confidence methods; these lead to conditional inference for simple hypotheses with vector parameters, and can be extended to provide tests for treatment, for variance, and for treatment improvement, in the multivariate analysis of variance context.     

Approximate conditional inference and the linear functional model

Approximate conditional inference is developed for the slope parameter of the linear functional model with two variables. It is shown that the model can be transformed so that the slope parameter becomes an angle and nuisance parameters are radial distances. If the nuisance parameters are known an exact confidence interval based on a location-type conditional distribution is available for the angle. More gen¬erally, confidence distributions are used to average the conditional distribution over the nuisance parameters yielding an approximate conditional confidence interval that reflects the precision indicated by the data. An example is analyzed.